About Me

I grew up in a very small town in the middle of Canada.  There were very few restaurants.  Everyone had gardens.  Meals were cooked at home, using mostly vegetables from the garden.  Fruit was also grown or picked for the most part.  And we were very active.  There wasn’t much to do but to get outside, even in the middle of winter which lasted for 7-8 months. 

But that started to change when we moved to the suburbs of Toronto.  Mom and I discovered Tostitos and we would eat them while watching The Young and The Restless and Star Trek after school.  I had a job at 15 and I could buy my own lunches so rather than something from home, I was eating french fries, an ice cream sandwich and Coke.  I was still very active, but based on what I know now, I was destroying the health of my gut. I was becoming a poster child for unhealthy living.  

By the time I was 16, my health was starting to change.  I developed severe allergies after a very stressful move which resulted in 6 months of tonsillitis.  I know now that the tonsillitis was a side effect of Epstein Barr Virus which is mono.  The doctors didn’t know that I had EBV.  In order to be able to have the surgery to remove my tonsils, I had 6 months of antibiotics which completely wiped out my microbiome and this was the start of 30 years of health issues. 

I developed gut infections, hives and rashes, severe gut pain, heart palpitations, weird brain fog, joint swelling, allergy induced asthma, crime scene menstrual cycles, anemia, UTI’s, yeast infections, significant fatigue, gallbladder issues, hair loss, etc, etc, etc. 

By the time I had reached 45, I was ready to give up.  I was getting nowhere in the medical community.  I couldn’t imagine living my life this way one more day but the love for my children kept me searching.  As an engineer, it didn’t make sense to me that I couldn’t fix myself.  After an emergency hospital stay in Canada because of my gallbladder, I finally reached my “No More”. 

No More feeling like shit. 

No More putting my life in the hands of the medical community. 

No More settling for half a life. 

No More listening to anyone else about my health and my life. 

I got myself home to Colorado and started diving in and educating myself.  I was so lucky to run into some very key women in my life that directed me down the right path towards healing.  I’m grateful for them every day. 

Along the way I found a wonderful doctor who was switching to more of a functional medicine practice and she diagnosed me with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. I was never happier.  I could finally focus my education on what was needed to help me learn to live my best possible life with autoimmune.